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Influential Albums: 1255-1261
Fri., Oct. 20. 2023 10:51am EDT
J. Jackson, lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX here again.
Here are the latest entries in the "albums that influenced me" series I started writing in May 2020.
Note: Just because an album appears on this list doesn't mean I give it a blanket endorsement. Many of the secular albums on this list are mainly there because they wound up being spoofed by ApologetiX.
1255. Hit Parade - Audio Adrenaline
Audio Adrenaline's first greatest hits collection, Hit Parade, arrived in March 2001, the same month we installed Bill Rieger (we hadn't started calling him "Moose" yet) as Fred Behanna's successor on drums. Bill had actually played his first concerts with ApologetiX before we had even met Fred. He'd filled in for us at five concerts in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, and Ohio back in the winter of 1998-99, and we thought he was a perfect fit. However, at the time, Bill's schedule didn't allow him to pursue things further, so Fred became our drummer in February 1999. After Fred retired in late January 2001, Bill auditioned for the part of full-time drummer at concerts in Ohio and Pennsylvania in late February and early March. He played his first concert as our official drummer in Collegeville PA on March 24, 2001. Hit Parade came out 11 days before that, and I picked it up immediately. Bill wound up liking Audio Adrenaline a lot, too. All of the guys in ApologetiX did, and we used this album as house music before and after our concerts. It featured 17 tracks from the group's four previous studio LPs — three from Don't Censor Me (1993), four from Bloom ('96), three from Some Kind of Zombie ('97), and five from Underdog ('99) — plus two new tracks, "Will Not Fade" (#2 Christian Rock) and "One Like You" (#2 Christian Hit Radio). "Will Not Fade" reminded me of U2 with a touch of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians ... and it still does. I just listened to Hit Parade again with headphones on while writing this entry, and all the tunes sound better than ever. What a great band! But the parade wasn't over, and there will more Audio A. albums later on this list and a couple cool stories I look forward to sharing.
1256. Hot Shot - Shaggy
One of the first things Bill Rieger did after joining ApologetiX was to cook breakfast for us and our wives on Saturday, March 31, 2001. Bill was a professional chef, so he took pride in his cooking, and rightly so. After the meal, we all went to a local mall to shop for cool stage clothes under the watchful eyes of our better halves. Having worn our ApologetiX logo shirts onstage since June 1999 (yes, we washed them periodically and, yes, they made us look like a bowling team), it was time for a change. We'd been impressed by the fun duds sported by a band that opened for us at the Toledo Zoo in July 2000, and that's what sowed the seeds of our fashion revolution. This album reminds me of breakfast with Bill and the subsequent shopping spree, because I'd just bought it beforehand. Released in August 2000, Hot Shot was Jamaican-American singer Shaggy's fifth LP. It topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks, selling nine million copies worldwide, thanks to a pair of #1 singles that peaked in February and March 2001, respectively — "It Wasn't Me" (featuring Ricardo "RikRok" Ducent) and "Angel" (featuring Rayvon). Both of those songs also reached the summit of the U.K. pop chart. "It Wasn't Me" had a unique premise (i.e. deny you've been cheating even if you're caught red-handed), but I favored "Angel," even though (or perhaps because) it borrowed music from two other tunes, "The Joker" (by Steve Miller) and "Angel of the Morning" (made famous by both Merilee Rush and Juice Newton). Hot Shot yielded two other singles, but neither hit the Hot 100. However, both made the U.K. Top 20 — "Luv Me, Luv Me" featuring Samantha Cole (#5 U.K.) and "Dance & Shout / Hope" (featuring King Mydas) (#104 U.S., #19 U.K.). I remember my brother-in-law Dan suggesting that ApologetiX do a spoof of "It Wasn't Me" about Adam and Eve. We opted for "Angel" about Mary and Joseph.
1257. Mad Season - Matchbox Twenty
Matchbox Twenty's second LP, Mad Season, came out in May 2000, but I was pretty oblivious to it until after Bill Rieger joined ApologetiX the following year. I associate it with him; I'm reasonably sure he owned the cassette and brought it along on some band trips. Four cuts from Mad Season made the charts: "Bent" (#1 pop, #1 Adult Top 40 for 13 weeks, #16 alternative, #24 mainstream rock), "If You're Gone" (#5 pop, #1 Adult Top 40 for 13 weeks), "Mad Season" (#48 pop, #5 Adult Top 40), and "Last Beautiful Girl" (#113 pop, #20 Adult Top 40). The ones I liked best were "If You're Gone" and "Mad Season" (which I still sing snippets of from time to time) but my favorite Matchbox Twenty song, "Unwell" (#5 pop, #1 Adult Top 40 for 18 weeks) wouldn't appear until the group's third LP, More Than You Think You Are, released in November 2002. Mad Season went to #3 on the Billboard 200 and sold over four million copies. Other cool tracks on it included "Angry," "Black & White People," "Crutch," "Burn," and "Bed of Lies."
1258. No Turning Back - Out of Eden
On July 21, 2001, ApologetiX made its first appearance at Grace 2001, an outdoor Christian music festival with big stages set up right in the streets of Pensacola FL. It was a cool setting but the hottest concert we'd ever played. That record would be broken two years later at the Spirit of Vegas festival in Boulder City NV, but Florida had something Nevada didn't have — stifling humidity. That's OK; there was a rainstorm later on anyway. Welcome to Florida, right? We got to meet some of the other performers in the artist lounge area after we played, and I remember two in particular as being very friendly and nice — singer Jaci Velasquez and the Gospel/R&B trio Out of Eden, featuring the Kimmey sisters (Lisa, Andrea, and Danielle). My wife, Lisa, was with me on that trip, and that's where we picked up Out of Eden's third LP, No Turning Back, originally released in June 1999. We were already familiar with them from three of our WOW CDs, including two cuts from this album — "If You Really Knew" (on WOW 1999) and "River" (on WOW 2000). I like them both, especially "River." I remember my Lisa also liking the song "Window." Other great cuts included "Spirit Moves," "Here's My Heart," and "Tomorrow." The title track has some great rap bits on it, too. Speaking of which, did I mention that Out of Eden was discovered by DC Talk's TobyMac, who co-produced this project? Although No Turning Back didn't make the Billboard 200, it reached #6 on the U.S. Christian albums chart. Out of Eden would put out three more studio LPs in 2002, 2004, and 2005. ApologetiX would return to Pensacola to play the Grace festival again in 2003, 2004, and 2006.
1259. Mascara & Monsters: The Best of Alice Cooper - Alice Cooper
Rhino Records really could curate a collection. Mascara & Monsters: The Best of Alice Cooper was certainly no exception. Released in January 2001, it featured 22 tracks, including 17 of Alice's first 18 Hot 100 hits as a group and as a solo artist. That's everything from "I'm Eighteen" (#21) in 1971 through "Poison" (#7) in 1989. The only one missing from that span is "Caught in a Dream" (#94), which charted significantly lower than any of the others. It's funny how this compilation didn't even call itself "Greatest Hits" but still put most albums with that title to shame. Although Alice is remembered for hard-rock classics, some of his biggest singles were mellow solo efforts, like the Top 10 hit "You and Me" (#9) and three separate singles that all peaked at #12 — "Only Women," "I Never Cry," and "How You Gonna See My Now." My favorite song on Mascara & Monsters, however, was one of the four non-hits, "Generation Landslide." It originally appeared on Alice's highest-charting album, Billion Dollar Babies, which topped the Billboard 200 in 1973. ApologetiX went on to spoof four of the songs on Mascara & Monsters: "I'm Eighteen," "School's Out" (#7), "No More Mr. Nice Guy" (#25), and "Under My Wheels" (#59). That shouldn't come as a surprise, because three of the longest-tenured ApX band members — drummer Jimmy "Vegas" Tanner, bassist Keith Haynie, and guitarist Tom Tincha — are all Alice aficionados.
1260. Cledus "T." Judd (No Relation) - Cledus T. Judd
Although I'm no relation to James Barry Poole — and I've never met him — he was born the same year as I, and we both wound up pursuing a passion for parodies. I became the lead singer and lyricist for ApologetiX, and he became Cledus T. Judd, sometimes referred to as the "Weird Al" of country music. Judd's debut LP, Cledus "T." Judd (No Relation), came out in June 1995, about a year after the second ApX album, Radical History Tour. His early efforts were a lot more polished than ours, however. Lisa and I discovered Cledus (unrelated, as clearly stated, to Naomi and Wynonna) sometime in 2000 or 2001, and I purchased quite a few of his CDs over the next few years. My favorites on this one were "Gone Funky" ("Gone Country" by Alan Jackson), "Indian In-Laws" ("Indiana Outlaw" by Tim McGraw), and "Stinkin' Problem" ("Thinkin' Problem" by David Ball). No Relation featured four other parodies, including spoofs of the non-country hits "Hotel California" by The Eagles and "We Are the World" by USA for Africa. It also had a rap version of "Swingin'" by John Anderson, plus two original songs.
1261. A Time to Laugh - Nick Alexander
A Time to Laugh was the first LP (at least the first one I know of) by Nick Alexander, who advertised himself as the "Catholic Weird Al." I think he sent me a copy himself in 2000, the year it came out, and we corresponded a number of times via email over the next seven years or so, during which I also acquired his next two CDs, Eternal Life: The Party Album and I Wanna Be Debated. Although I attend a non-denominational church, I spent the first 23 years of my life in the Roman Catholic church — including 12 years of Catholic school — so I could certainly appreciate Nick's parodies. Conversely, he was raised Episcopalian before later converting to Catholicism. I haven't conversed with him in a decade and a half but, from what I can tell for his website, he's still active. Four tracks in particular I remember fondly from A Time to Laugh are "Old Time Gregorian Chant" ("Old Time Rock and Roll" by Bob Seger), "Should I Stand or Should I Kneel," ("Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by The Clash), "Tithe After Tithe" ("Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper), and "I Got You Saved" ("I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher). My favorite line from the album: "Just like that old time Gregorian chant — that kind of music really soothes my plants." You can hear that song for yourself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3eDgK0rROQ
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